From midday friday 25 July, to midday Saturday, a low deepened by 28 hPa as it moved towards the top of the North Island from the area east of Queensland. On Saturday afternoon, as the low moved over land near Kaitaia in Northland, its central pressure was around 960 hPa—lower than the storm that caused […]...
The Southern Crossing of the Tararua Range is a track with a long history, dating back to the early part of the twentieth century. A group called the Mt Hector Track Committee proposed developing a track to connect Otaki with the Wairarapa. Through their efforts, three huts were erected, amongst the earliest built in the […]...
In the late 19th and early 20th century, when our native fauna was either taken for granted or considered a pest, it was perfectly acceptable to mount bits of birds in silver and gold, to be worn as jewellery. The huia was always a coveted species, with its tail feathers worn by Maori to signify […]...
If you noticed something pretty big hurtling towards you at 120 kilometres per second, you’d be worried, right? And if that “something pretty big” turned out to be a trillion stars—a whole, very large galaxy—that would be bad, wouldn’t it? This is not an academic question. Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way Galaxy are […]...
You may have noticed, lamented, and been infuriated by our free-to-air broadcasters, who seem to regard natural history as something of a bygone genre, leaving it to Prime to screen superb series such as BBC’s Life in Cold Blood and the equally gobsmacking Wild China. Except perhaps for Meet the Locals, the series of four-minute […]...
Nimrod, Borchgrevink’s, Terra Nova, Discovery—these are the names of a collection of dilapidated huts on a continent unfit for human habitation. These are also the huts that represent the ‘heroic age’ of exploration, the first buildings to be constructed on the world’s most southern continent. And, as those who argue for their preservation like to […]...
New Zealander’s case to co-host the multi-billion dollar international astronomical project, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), has moved another step closer with the October launch of AUT University’s High Definition Radio Telescope in Warkworth. The 12 m radio telescope is a prototype designed to link with powerful supercomputers processing simultaneous observations over large distances, a […]...
Whining in second gear, my car shudders over the Crown Range and into the heartland of Central Otago. With dozens of dizzying switchbacks behind me, I enter a spare and dramatic landscape pilled with tussock and dusted with spring snow. Above the snowline, low-lying vegetation clings to the hillside and the structure of the Alpine […]...
Every Saturday in cities and suburbs, small towns and remote country districts, greens are mowed and rolled, mats put out, coins tossed, bowls delivered, scores kept, tea made. Enjoyed in New Zealand by 91,000 players, bowls ranks in popularity ahead of rugby or cricket and is capturing a new generation....
